


We Might As Well Be Strangers

by stormonmyskin



Category: Muse (Band)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Porn, Character Death, Fluff, M/M, Major character death - Freeform, Mentions of Suicide, Mentions of leukaemia, Porn With Plot, Sex, Smut, So much angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-15
Updated: 2017-03-01
Packaged: 2018-09-27 16:44:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 20,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10034027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stormonmyskin/pseuds/stormonmyskin
Summary: I don't understand your heart. It's easier to be apart.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **Author:** stormonmyskin  
>  **Pairing:** Belldom  
>  **Rating:** r/15?? For now.  
>  **Beta:** No beta, all mistakes my own.  
>  **Warnings:** Angst angst angst. Maybe smut later but emphasis on later. **_ANGST._** Also brief mentions of leukaemia so if that kind of thing troubles you don't read. Only brief though.  
>  **Summary:** I don't understand your heart. It's easier to be apart.  
>  **Disclaimer** : Obviously this never happened. I don't own Muse. If I did trust me I would not be sitting here writing about them....  
> 

Matt padded out of his bedroom and cast his eyes sadly around the house. There was a neat pile of books on the coffee table that he’d never heard of…a stack of vinyl records next to the record player by bands he didn’t know…he sighed deeply, and went through to the kitchen to get a glass of orange juice. He opened the fridge and saw it was filled with food he didn’t eat. The cupboards yielded the same. He poured his juice and sat down at the kitchen table. He needed to face some cruel facts today.

 

After finishing his drink, he walked, still barefoot, to the French windows out on to the spacious back garden. He opened them wide and let the fresh air pour into the house. He was wearing just jogging bottoms and a loose t-shirt and he shivered a little in the pre-dawn air. The sun was just rising behind the trees and the sky was tinged with pink. “Red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning,” he murmured to himself. He turned away, gazing round the room. The gnarly, knotty, original oak floorboards. The large telly. The huge sound system. The comfy settee and armchair. The sleek glass coffee table. The open-plan diner and folding doors into the large spacious kitchen. The wide stairs carpeted in deep, cream carpet.

Matt felt no attachment to any of this house, no matter how beautiful it was. It didn’t matter that they had picked out every last detail together, had furnished and decorated and carpeted and painted it together. He flicked through the magazines on the settee. None of them were familiar to him anymore. He ran his hands through his hair in misery. What was he doing here?

There was a pile of post stacked haphazardly under a paper weight, on the table by the front door. There was a note resting on top of it all. “Got this in from the box, didn’t have time to sort it – do me a favour and go through it for me, will you? Be home later. Lots of love, Dom.” He ran his fingers over the scrawl. He barely recognised the handwriting anymore. A lump came to his throat. He idly shuffled through the post, separating it into piles. He left _his_ pile under the paperweight with the note, and took his own post back to the settee, sinking down into its luxurious caress and slitting the envelopes open with his finger. One by one he skimmed through the small pile of junk mail, bank statements, and fan mail that had been sent to him from all over the country – all over the world, judging by some of the postmarks.

One piece of fan mail caught his eye. He opened and read every one of them, but went back to one when he’d finished. It was nothing fancy. Black ink written on red paper. Neat handwriting, slanting gently to the right, in straight lines across the page.

 _“To Matt,_  
I hope you don’t mind me writing to you. I just wanted to tell you how much you mean to me. Your music saved my life. (He’d seen countless letters like this.) _I was in hospital being treated for leukaemia and I wanted to give up with the treatment because it wasn’t pleasant but your music kept me going back every day, gave me the strength to get through it. I’m 5 years in the clear now, and I thought it would be a good time to write to you and tell you this. I wouldn’t be alive without you._  
I hope you are happy, and that you know that you are loved by so many, that you have touched the lives of so many people and that you help so many people just by doing what you do best – making music, and being you.  
Love always,  
Lucy Watts.”

His fingers closed around the red paper. Never had a letter touched him so deeply, or made him so emotional. He felt tears well up in his eyes and spill over, splashing down his cheeks and onto the envelopes on his lap, destined for the recycle box.

He left his letters in a pile at his end of the settee, the red letter on top. He didn’t know why it had got to him so much, but it had. He was going to have it framed.

He wandered back to his bedroom, his heart lurching. All his pictures of them were suddenly leering out from the walls at him. The man he’d known since he was 12 years old now looked like a stranger to him. He didn’t know him from Adam anymore. Not really. He still looked the same, of course, but he could no sooner tell you anything this man had done or said in the last month than he could recite the Russian alphabet whilst standing on his head. He’d been horrible at languages at school.

He left his room, and went down the corridor. When had they started sleeping apart? He couldn’t remember, really. They had just fallen into it. Having to be up at different times, getting in at different times, one of them would take the other bed so as not to disturb the other, and eventually all of his things had moved out of their previously shared room. He pushed open the door. He had not been in this room for months. It smelt of _him_. _His_ cologne, _his_ hair products. The bed was unmade. Matt gently went and made the covers. He hadn’t seen this duvet set before. It was plain black with 3 layers of red ribboning across the top of the duvet. Elegant. Sleek. And nothing at all like something the man he thought he knew would have chosen. He wiped a tear from his cheek.

He straightened the pictures on the dresser. Here, too, were lots of pictures of them together. Happy. Smiling. Kissing. It felt like another lifetime. Matt had to hold back the sobs and fled the room, going back to his own, curling up on the bed and crying. How had he existed like this for so long? He had lived under a fog of blindness. It was not until he had been tossing and turning in bed the night before, unable to sleep, that he realised he had no idea where _he_ was. Matt, as a rule, slept well. His head would barely touch the pillow before he was unconscious. The last time he had had trouble sleeping… _he_ had been there to comfort him, to lull him to sleep with rhythmic caresses down his back and soft fingers in his hair and a warm body to cuddle up to. This morning Matt had been able to see everything all too clearly. They might as well be strangers, for all he knew of the man he lived with now. Matt might as well be living the other side of the London. The other end of the country. He didn’t know his favourite song anymore. Couldn’t tell you what his favourite meal was. Couldn’t say what his favourite TV programme was. It had been months since they had eaten together – even when they were both home, they were rarely together – one was usually working, or sleeping, or showering. In the studio, as they were at the moment, they were often working on separate things. They came together only to discuss music. And they hadn’t even _noticed_.

He used to be able to tell you every thought that passed through the man’s head, so well did he know him. How had they managed to drift apart so far that he didn’t he even know when they had last shared emotion together?

Matt curled into a small ball on his bed, hid his head under his arm, and sobbed for the lost love that he hadn’t even noticed he was losing.


	2. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I don't understand your heart. It's easier to be apart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Author:** stormonmyskin  
>  **Pairing:** Belldom  
>  **Rating:** r/15?? For now.  
>  **Beta:** No beta, all mistakes my own.  
>  **Warnings:** Angst angst angst. Maybe smut later but emphasis on later. **_ANGST._** Oh yeah, and a little bit of naughty language in this one.  
>  **Summary:** I don't understand your heart. It's easier to be apart.  
>  **Disclaimer:** Obviously this never happened. I don't own Muse. If I did trust me I would not be sitting here writing about them....  
> 

Dom got home to find the house very quiet. He thrust his keys back in his pocket, as always, and saw that Matt had sorted the post as he’d asked, leaving only his behind under the paperweight. He picked it up and gathered his pile together, going over to the settee. Matt had left his own pile on the end, where he usually sat. As Dom sat down, a bright flash of red caught his eye. He reached out and snagged the letter from Matt’s pile.

Tears welled in his eyes as he read the words, inked neatly onto the eye-catching paper. They rarely received letters as unique, as heartfelt and as touching as this. He placed it gently back down on Matt’s pile with a small smile, and turned his attention to his own stack of post. Mostly bills, bank statements, a few bits of junk mail, and his own small pile of letters from fans, forwarded from their management. He read all the fan mail, smiling. It made him really happy to know people cared enough to put time and effort into writing to them. It was a special feeling to know you touch the lives of so many people in such a positive way. He stacked it up on the coffee table, standing up, and then frowned. The French windows to the back garden were stood wide open; that’s why the air in the house had felt so pleasant on such a warm day. Normally the house would be too warm and stuffy if the windows were shut. But it was so quiet that he’d assumed no-one was home.

“Matt?” he called, standing still in the middle of the room. There was no reply. He headed down the hall and up the stairs, kicking his converse off as he went. “Matt, you in?” he called again. Again, he was met with only silence. Dom was still living under the fog of obliviousness. In his eyes nothing was wrong. Just as it had seemed to Matt, only yesterday.  
He opened Matt’s bedroom door cautiously. Matt was curled in a tight ball on the end of his bed, and, by the foot of his bed, zipped up and ready to go, was a packed suitcase.

 

Dom’s world stopped.

 

Matt’s head was buried under his arm and he did not move. Not even an inch. He hadn’t flinched when Dom had come in and as Dom came further in he showed no signs of even knowing he was there. “M-Matt?” Dom stuttered. He crept round the side of the bed, to try and see Matt’s face, but it was well and truly hidden. He could only just make out the gentle rise and fall of Matt’s chest. He put a hand on Matt’s shoulder, shaking him gently. “Matt?” Nothing. He shook again. “Matt?!” He began to panic.

Matt came to life. He moved slowly, unfurling from his ball. When he was finally upright, he didn’t look Dom, but stared at his hands. “You scared me!” Dom exclaimed. “I thought…I thought…”

“You thought everything was okay,” Matt said simply. His voice was heartbreakingly sad and Dom was bewildered. “But it’s not, is it? It’s not okay. I can see that now.” He looked up at Dom, and the pain in his blue eyes was shattering. “What are we doing?” he asked forlornly.  
“Wha-what do you mean?” Dom shook his head. He gestured to Matt’s suitcase. “You – I…explain.”

Matt put his hands to his face wearily. “When was the last time we shared a bed?” he spoke into his hands, his voice muffled. “When was the last time we ate a meal together? Shared something? When was the last time we talked about anything but the new album? Fuck, Dom, when was the last time we had sex? _Kissed_ , even?” He lifted his head. Dom had sat heavily on the other corner of the bed. “It’s like I don’t know you anymore, Dom. I couldn’t tell you what was going through your head. I couldn’t say what your favourite song was. I couldn’t say what time you got in last night, or where you’d been. I don’t know anything about you. And you…don’t know anything about me.” For it was a two-way thing. Matt knew that, for all the things he didn’t know about Dom anymore, Dom didn’t know them about Matt. Dom knew nothing of Matt’s newfound love of the Indian takeaway place on the next road. He didn’t know Matt could happily sit and watch episode after episode of Breaking Bad without being bored. He had no idea what song Matt had on repeat.

Matt watched the realisation dawn on Dom’s face. Watched the penny drop. Dom had been living in the same bubble as Matt had. And now that bubble had been burst and their relationship was laid bare in the cold, harsh light of day.

Matt wondered idly if this meant the end of the band, as he climbed off the bed, picked his small suitcase up, and headed out of the room silently, head down. He didn’t see why it should. There had been no tumultuous row and break-up; they had just drifted apart.  
He wondered why he was the one leaving when it had been his house in the first place. He pulled the front door shut behind him with a soft click. Dom had been frozen on the edge of the bed when he left, going back through the months in his mind, realising that Matt was right. He had not come running after Matt and begging him to stay. Matt had half-hoped he would, and felt a little twinge of disappointment in his chest as he pulled his car door shut and started the engine. Where he was going, he didn’t know, but he wasn’t sure how to stay there. It was all wrong.

He had taken only clothes, the pile of post which he’d collected on the way out, and his laptop. He’d left the photos. He’d left everything which had made them a couple.

 _How_ had he not seen it? How had their friends not seen it? _Someone_ must have noticed the distance that had been working its way between them. Why didn’t they say anything?

Matt closed his eyes for a brief second as he stopped at traffic lights. He wondered if it was salvageable. Would they be able to heal it with words and touches and kisses and caresses? He wasn’t sure. He pulled off, and impulsively turned left instead of the right turn he usually took at that junction. He decided to just drive where the roads took him, drive until he was tired of driving.

 

He stayed at a B&B that night. In the morning, _he_ rang.

“Are you coming back?” he said. Matt could not work out whether he wanted Matt to go back or not. He hedged his bets. “Not today.”

They spoke to each other like strangers who had just met: polite, detached, formal and stiff. They had been like strangers, for the past however long this had been happening. Matt couldn’t remember the last time they’d shared a bed. They’d been like two strangers, living in an empty space. Together but not _really_ together.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I don't understand your heart. It's easier to be apart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Author:** stormonmyskin  
>  **Pairing:** Belldom  
>  **Rating:** r/15?? For now.  
>  **Beta:** No beta, all mistakes my own.  
>  **Warnings:** Angst angst angst. Maybe smut later but emphasis on later. ANGST.  
>  **Summary:** I don't understand your heart. It's easier to be apart.  
>  **Disclaimer:** Obviously this never happened. I don't own Muse. If I did trust me I would not be sitting here writing about them....  
>  **Author's Note:** This is a bit of an action-light chapter, but it's important.

Dom looked sadly around the house. Matt had not taken any of that which made them a couple. He had taken only his things. All the pictures of them remained. All their shared memories were left behind.

He had had no idea what had been happening to them. He hadn’t noticed. They had been so caught up in their lives that they had just drifted apart without realising. How had they not realised?

He did not know where Matt was. He did not know if Matt was even coming back. When he rang him, Matt had just said ‘Not today.’ What did that _mean_? Tomorrow? Next week? _Never_? He wanted Matt back. He desperately did. He needed to talk to him, to understand. He needed to look into Matt’s eyes. He needed to know if Matt still loved him.

 

Matt lay back on his bed. He didn’t know quite what to do with himself. He didn’t know what to think. He wanted to talk to Dom, but he didn’t think that they should talk yet. It was still too raw. And he needed time to think about things, about how he felt. Did he love Dom still? Unequivocally, yes. Dom was his soulmate. It was unthinkable that Matt should ever stop loving him. Did Dom love him still? He didn’t know.

A walk. He needed to walk. To clear his head. He loved Dom, yes. Loved him with all his soul, with everything he had. But was it enough?

Matt got back to the B&B late that night. He had walked for miles, just thinking, about Dom, about himself, about all the years they had spent together, all the kisses shared, all the nights spent together. About recent months, when he and Dom had drifted apart, had led separate lives. About whether they could fix this mess.

 

Dom spent the day playing the drums. He pounded them until his arms hurt and sweat poured down his body and he could hardly breathe. He didn’t know how else to cope with the pain of realising what they had done to themselves. He didn’t know any other way of releasing the emotion so he drummed and drummed and drummed until he collapsed backwards off his stool with exhaustion and lay slumped against the wall, too tired to move. He fell asleep there, his stomach churning too much to even think about food. He knew he would regret it in the morning when he woke up in agony but he couldn’t quite bring himself to care. Future him could deal with that.

 

In the morning, Matt checked out of the B&B, and drove home. He pulled up on the drive. _His_ car was there. He looked at it apprehensively, then climbed out of his car and went to the door, pulling his suitcase behind him. He carried his suitcase up the stairs to his room, then went back down to the kitchen and cooked himself some breakfast. There was no sign of _him_ as he sat eating, and he contemplated what to do. It felt like it was easier for them to be apart. He was not prepared to ask Dom to move out, he had never been one for confrontation. So he would have to go. He had a flat in London where he could go and stay. But what would he take? He had all the clothes that he would want still packed in his suitcase, and he thought he might take his books and music and films, but he wasn’t sure if he should take photos of them and reminders of their life together. He thought it might hurt too much. He plonked his plate in the sink, went back upstairs to his bedroom, and began lifting piles of books off his bookshelf.

There was a gentle knock on his door. Matt plopped himself down on his bed. “Yes?” he called. His throat went utterly dry, and time seemed to slow to a crawl around him. He watched the door handle be pushed down, as though in slow motion, and heard the slight creak the door made every time it opened. Dom came in and stood there and looked at him, and Matt felt his heart splinter into pieces in his chest – felt it as surely as if he had just been hit with a sledgehammer. Because here was the face of the man he had loved for so many years, and it was like he was looking at a stranger.

He couldn’t help himself – a sob bubbled up his throat and burst from his lips in a yelp of pain; he lurched up from the bed and dashed to the window, turning his back on Dom, gazing out at their beautiful garden momentarily before tears blurred his vision and he buried his face in his hands.

He could feel Dom’s helplessness. Neither of them knew what to do. Soft pads told him Dom was crossing the room; a gentle sigh came to his ears as Dom sat down on the bed where Matt had been seconds before.

Summoning every ounce of strength he could find, Matthew swallowed the sobs threatening to force their way out, scrubbed his face with the back of his hand, and turned back to face the room. Dom was gazing at him, his expression heart-breaking.

“Is this it, then?” Dom asked in a tiny voice. “Are we over?”

“I don’t know,” Matt replied. “I don’t – I don’t know what to do.” He lowered his eyes. “We might as well be strangers, Dom. For all – for all I know of you, anymore. For all you know of me. It would… probably be easier, really, for us to be apart. And yet…and yet…I know, as surely as I know my own name, that I will never stop loving you. I _cannot_ not love you. And so I don’t know what to do.”

He looked at the floor, unable to look Dom in the eye. There was a long, pregnant pause.

“I thought I might move out for a bit,” Matt said eventually when Dom didn’t speak, gesturing to the piles of books he had fetched off the shelves. “Perhaps…it might be easier…to consider what we want. Perhaps we could…try other things…” He couldn’t bring himself to say it, but he thought perhaps if they broke out of this rut they’d fallen into, they might figure out their feelings. Perhaps being apart properly would make them miss each other desperately, or realise that they just didn’t miss each other. One or the other.

“How long is a bit?” asked Dom dully, sounding almost resigned.

“However long feels right,” Matt said gently. “I was just going to play it by ear.”

“So that’s it, then?” Dom said. “You’re just going. You’ve made up your mind.”

“I don’t see any other option, Dom. Unless…” he hesitated. Was he saying he wanted to try and fix it? Was he suggesting they act like a couple again? Sleep together, do things together, go on dates? Matt would be prepared to try, if Dom wanted to. He would try _anything_.

 

“Unless what, Matt?”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I don't understand your heart. It's easier to be apart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Author:** stormonmyskin  
>  **Pairing:** Belldom  
>  **Rating:** r/15?? For now.  
>  **Beta:** No beta, all mistakes my own.  
>  **Warnings:** Angst angst angst. Maybe smut later but emphasis on later. **_ANGST._** Mentions of suicide.  
>  **Summary:** I don't understand your heart. It's easier to be apart.  
>  **Disclaimer:** Obviously this never happened. I don't own Muse. If I did trust me I would not be sitting here writing about them....  
>  **Author's Note:** I set myself strict limits on chapter length so...this situation is stagnating a bit in this one. It's gonna get worse before it gets better, folks. And this chapter contains mentions of suicide so if that bothers you please steer clear, I want to entertain, not upset.

Matt could feel the anxiety bubbling in his throat. He couldn’t say it, in case Dom rejected the notion. But he couldn’t _not_ say it. “Unless you…” He lost his bottle at the last minute. “Had any other ideas?” He cursed himself in his mind. _You coward, Bellamy._

He looked away then, ducked his head to hide his eyes from Dom’s piercing grey gaze.

Dom just shrugged. “I don’t know.” And then he turned his head away and looked at the floor. Each little word was like a splinter to Matt’s heart. He wanted to Dom to come over to him, to look him in the eyes, to _fight_ , to do something, but instead, he just said he didn’t know. _What a cop out._

The thoughts that flitted fleetingly through Matt’s head in the next few seconds made him glad Dom couldn’t mind-read. Thoughts of throwing himself out of the window made themselves known, or jumping off a bridge, because he felt so helpless, so _hopeless_. Instead, he just slid forlornly down the wall, and sat staring at his hands and willing himself not to cry. Dom sighed deeply, and Matt wondered what he was thinking. The words had left his mouth before he could check himself.

“What are you thinking?”

Dom looked round sharply, surprised by Matt’s question. “Erm…” he hesitated. “You want to know what I’m thinking? Really?” Matt nodded. He had half-expected Dom to ignore the question, or brush it off with a shake of his head, so his willingness to answer was a chance not to be missed. Dom took a deep breath. “I’m wondering what _you’re_ thinking. What you want me to say. What you want me to do. I’m wondering what I _should_ say or do, what course is the right one, what we whether we should try and fix it or accept that it’s not working. I’m wondering if I want you to go away or if I just want to gather you into my arms and never let you go. And I’m wondering if _you_ really want to go away.” He paused for breath. “So what about you?”

Matt’s turn to be surprised. What could he tell him? Dom watched as a series of emotions flitted across Matt’s face, each one just a shadow, and most unreadable. He wondered if Matt was censoring his thoughts. Matt took a deep breath now, and started to talk, the words running into each other as he rushed to get them out before he thought better of it. “I want to know why you just said you didn’t know. I wanted you to come over and do something to fight or to sort this out but you didn’t and I’m wondering why. I…I’m wondering if maybe instead of going away we should try and be a couple again – maybe sleeping together and going out and spending time together doing meaningful things might get us back on track. I’m wondering what will happen with the band and the album. I’m wondering how long I should go away for, if I do. I’m worrying that you _want_ me to go away, and hoping that you want me to stay here and fight for this, but I’m also wondering if going away would give us space from each other, to clear our heads and work out what we really want. And I-…” Matt faltered. Should he confess to his fleeting thoughts of suicide? _Why not_ , he argued with himself. “I’m wondering if it might be better for me to just throw myself out of a window, or off a bridge or something, and be done with it.” He spoke in a rush, not giving himself time to change his mind. He watched Dom process his words, and then his head snapped up, his eyes wide. Horrified.

“No!” he shouted at Matt, and Matt flinched. Dom had gone very, very white. “No! Don’t you ever… don’t you ever say that, don’t you ever think that, no, just, don’t…don’t.” His head fell into his hands and Matt wondered if he should have just kept quiet.

But Dominic wasn’t saying anything now. Deciding that they were never going to get anything sorted out by just standing here, and that going away for a bit was really the only option left, Matt pushed himself up from the floor, and went back to his bookshelf, taking more piles of books from it and stacking them on the bed, then moving onto DVDs and CDs. Dom watched him silently, then, as Matt pulled a huge suitcase out from under his bed, he stood up, his arms hanging limply by his sides, as Matt stacked books and films into the case, his heart dying a little more with each one.

“You _are_ going, then.” It was a statement, not a question, and there was a note of resignation in Dom’s voice. “Where will you go?”

“I don’t know,” Matt said shortly. “I’ll find somewhere.”

“When will you come back?”

It was Matt’s turn to just shrug. He didn’t feel able to speak without bursting into tears anymore and he absolutely did not want to cry in front of Dominic. “What about the album?”

Matt swallowed a few times. “I don’t know, Dom. What about the album? It can be put on hold for a bit, we’ve got the studio for months. If you want to go, go, but I probably won’t be there much for a while. Not when you are, at least. The point of this is to get _separation_ , Dom. To have space so we can think about what we really want. We can hardly do that if we’re bumping into each other every five minutes.”

“Maybe I know what I really want,” Dom protested. Matt stopped what he was doing, and straightened up wearily.

“If you know what you really want, why don’t you just tell me?” There was only a loud silence. No reply.

Matt sighed, and started packing again. Dominic didn’t say anything as Matt trudged round the house, collecting his things, and packing them. He didn’t say anything as Matt zipped up his case and put it by his door with the other one. He stood in the doorway looking at Dom.

“Right, I’ll…I’ll be off now, shall I?”

Dom had just sat frozen, all the while, and it took him a few moments to come to life now Matt spoke to him. “If you think its best…” he started, then paused. “Call me when you get wherever it is you’re going, won’t you? Just…so that I know you’re safe.” Matt wondered if his throwaway remark about throwing himself off a bridge had affected Dom more than he’d meant it to. But he didn’t want him to worry.

“Of course,” he replied. That was not too big a request, after all, and it would be cruel of him to say no. He picked up his cases. “I’ll, uh…I’ll…well, I’ll see you soon, I suppose.” Dom just nodded. Matt turned at the last second. “Uh, Dom?”

Dom looked up. “Yeah?”

When Matt spoke again, his voice was very soft and gentle. “I’m sorry.” And then he was gone. Dom let himself fall backwards onto Matt’s bed, and then he curled up, and cried.  



	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I don't understand your heart. It's easier to be apart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Author:** stormonmyskin  
>  **Pairing:** Belldom  
>  **Rating:** r/15?? For now.  
>  **Beta:** No beta, all mistakes my own.  
>  **Warnings:** Angst angst angst. Maybe smut later but emphasis on later. **_ANGST._**  
>  **Summary:** I don't understand your heart. It's easier to be apart.  
>  **Disclaimer:** Obviously this never happened. I don't own Muse. If I did trust me I would not be sitting here writing about them....  
>  **Author's Note:** I'm sorry about this chapter.

Matt pulled up outside his executive London flat. It was in a very posh apartment block with its own car park, so he swiped his pass and the garage door opened, allowing him to purr in.

He lugged his cases out of the car and over to the lift, which he took up to his floor, the 5th floor. He pulled them along the corridor to his apartment, and then stopped to get his key out. _Here again._ He sighed. He was never a fan of this place, but it was in a fantastic location, was top of the range, and…well, he’d needed somewhere to stay, fast.

He hadn’t spent enough time here to make it his own, and it was decorated very impersonally. Everything was matte silver and black, the kitchen was all chrome and black, black leather sofa, black TV, brushed silver coffee table. He went on through to his bedroom. The bed was made with a black bedspread, and the cupboards surrounding it were black wood. He _hated_ it here. This was the sort of place business executives, suits, stayed. Not rock musicians. He decided on the spot that tomorrow he would go and find another flat, and move out of this one. Find somewhere that felt like a home.

He might as well settle in for the night, though, he thought, so he got out a few clothes and tried to make it feel more comfy. He went down to the corner shop to find some food, but finding nothing he liked, dismissed that, and called in at the chip shop on the way home. Sod healthy eating for once. He was eating to mend his broken heart.

After a quick call to _him_ just to let him know he’d arrived safely, he settled on the squashy sofa in front of the huge television and pulled up Netflix. He had another few episodes of Breaking Bad to watch and they would pass the time nicely and distract him from his rather miserable thoughts.

 

Dom slept in Matthew’s bed that night. He had used to spend every night in here, with Matthew; it had been _their_ bed long before it was _Matthew’s_ , but now he slept in it alone, hugging the pillow impregnated with Matt’s lovely scent, and crying himself to sleep. Matthew had moved out, and it seemed like the death knell for their relationship, even if he’d said the move was only temporary.

He got up early the next morning, his stomach churning, and thought about going to see Chris, before deciding against it. He would just get angry and upset. But what was he supposed to do all day? He wandered aimlessly around the house for a few hours, cleaning up non-existent dust and dirt. He rearranged his books into alphabetical order, then did the same for his CDs and DVDs, for in his laziness they’d got out of order. Suddenly all the things he normally did, all the people he saw and places he went, seemed unappealing. Just the thought of having to talk to someone he knew, to pretend he was okay when he so desperately wasn’t…no, he couldn’t do it.

Eventually, he left the house, went to the nearest underground station, a short walk from their house, got the tube across the city, and found a bar he’d never been in. He didn’t care that it was only 3pm and that drinking alone was sad. Dammit, he wanted to drink away all the pain and the memories. He wanted to get really pissed and forget everything, maybe go to a strip club. He ordered a double shot of vodka and downed it in one. God, that felt _good_.

 

Matt walked into the nearest estate agents and asked what flats they had for rent in London, telling them how much he paid for his current flat and saying that was what he was prepared to pay. The first few they looked round were much like the one he had, until he explained again, very slowly, what he was after – a _home_ , not some executive pad. The girl looked at him like he was an idiot, and he gave up, and walked off, heading down the street to the next one. The man he spoke to there seemed to understand him straight away, and got on the phone. Within minutes he had a viewing booked, and the estate agent drove him there. “This looks nice,” Matt said, peering out of the window at the block. It didn’t look so executive and city-ish. The estate agent pulled up. “Ready?”

It was perfect, and Matt signed the contract that afternoon, wondering why he’d ever signed a contract on the other one in the first place. He was scheduled to move the next day, so went to his current landlord, and told him he was leaving, gave him a cheque for three month’s rent, then spent that evening packing up everything he owned in the high-end executive flat. It didn’t take him long.

 

Dom was now quite decidedly drunk. He had moved bars a few times, and now he staggered out of the current one, and found a strip club just down the street. Perfect.

Matt called _him_ the next morning to ask him to pile up any post that arrived for him and he would be by to collect it the next day. There was no answer, so he called his mobile. No answer there, either. Matt frowned. _He_ took his mobile everywhere, and always pounced on it. Oh well. He shook himself, and tried to put it out of his mind. He spent the morning moving his small collection of possessions into his new apartment and cleaning it, making it his.

 

Dom spent the morning unconscious in the girl he’d gone home with’s bed. She finally woke him up at 1pm. “Excuse me?” she said, giggling shyly. “Sorry, it’s just…it’s 1pm…and I need to go out…”

Dom was mortified. He had a pounding headache and he felt like he’d drunk from a toilet, going on the taste and dryness of his mouth. Much of the night before was a blur…except the bits he’d rather not remember. On very unsteady feet, he made his way home, cringing, and sunk down onto the sofa with a huge glass of juice. He picked up the house phone. Two miscalls – one from his mother, and one from…Matt? Dammit. He checked his mobile. One text, one miscall. The text was from his mother, telling him not to worry, but she was just checking he was alright, because she’d spoken to Chris and he’d mentioned he hadn’t heard from either Matt or Dom for a few days, and he thought it was odd. The other miscall was from Matt. _Crap._ He experimented with talking. Nope, he was in no state to talk to Matt. As he sat there deliberating, his phone rang again, and he answered without thinking. “Hey, Dom?” Matt. Shit. Dom swallowed quickly and hoped he didn’t sound too awful. “You okay?”

“Hey, Matt. I’m fine – what’s wrong? I was just about to call you back, my er, my phone died last night, and I only just picked up your miscalls.” Dom remembered the original problem, and got to his feet in concern. “Are you alright?”

Matt frowned at his tone. “Er…yeah. I was just ringing to ask if you could sort my post out, I’ll be swinging by sometime tomorrow to pick it up.”

“Oh,” Dom said, wrong-footed. “Erm…sure. You want me to be here?”

“It’s up to you,” Matt said softly, and hung up.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I don't understand your heart. It's easier to be apart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Author:** stormonmyskin  
>  **Pairing:** Belldom  
>  **Rating:** r/15?? For now.  
>  **Beta:** No beta, all mistakes my own.  
>  **Warnings:** Angst angst angst. Maybe smut later but emphasis on later. **_ANGST._**  
>  **Summary:** I don't understand your heart. It's easier to be apart.  
>  **Disclaimer:** Obviously this never happened. I don't own Muse. If I did trust me I would not be sitting here writing about them....  
>  **Author's Note:** Things are going from bad to worse in this one as Matt confronts Dom about what he's done. Chris makes a brief appearance and I can tell you, as it may be a bit before I can next update, Tom will arrive in the next chapter to try and sort out what these boys don't seem to be able to manage on their own. Hope you enjoy!

Matt had hung up on _him_ for the first time in a very long time, and he wasn’t sure if he felt good about it, or like bursting into tears. The latter emotion got the better of him, and he curled up in a ball on his kitchen floor and sobbed.

He could tell from _his_ voice that he’d been very hung over. His racing mind had already slotted in the other pieces. Dom hadn’t answered his mobile this morning – he _never_ let it die, he was obsessive about never letting it die, so he must have been asleep. He hadn’t answered the house phone – so not at home. Their ringtone was loud enough to wake the dead at home. He’d been very drunk, so Matt surmised that he’d gone out, got pissed, and gone home with someone. _Slept_ with someone. Okay, they weren’t _really_ in a proper relationship at that point. But it still _hurt_.

Dom sat in stunned silence. Matthew had hung up on him. Matthew _never_ hung up on anyone. What had he said? What had he done? He couldn’t imagine. His head was still pounding, and he felt like crap. He got up from the sofa, staggered up the stairs and into Matt’s room, where he promptly collapsed onto Matt’s bed, out cold in seconds.

Matt, after huge deliberation, did go to the house the next day to pick up post. _His_ car was not there, and he was grateful because he was feeling fragile and didn’t think he could stand a confrontation just then. Dom had sorted his post into a pile, which had been left on the sofa, where Matt normally sat. Alongside the pile was all Matt’s clothes that had been in the wash at the time of his abrupt departure. They’d been lovingly washed, dried, ironed and folded. Atop the pile was a hand-written note.

_“Matt,_

_I thought it would be best if I wasn’t around when you called. I hope I haven’t upset you. Are you alright? I find myself worrying about you a lot. I found these clothes of yours in the wash, and thought you might want them. Let me know when you think you might be ready to come home._

_I miss you._

_Dom.”_

Tears welled up in his eyes at an alarming speed and suddenly he was sobbing again. He crouched by the settee, resting his elbows on his knees, burying his face in his hands and letting his tears fall onto the letter, until soon it was soaked through and the ballpoint-pen-writing began to blur and smudge.

Once he’d got control of himself, he gathered his things quickly, leaving the letter, crinkly with tears now, behind, and hurried from the house. He couldn’t be here.

Once home, he texted Chris, explaining everything, and assuring him that he was physically fine. Then he continued with settling into his new flat, hanging pictures and making a list of things he needed to buy for it. He also needed to clean out the bathroom –it wasn’t filthy, just not as clean as he’d like. So that less than enjoyable job was his plan for the evening, as he attempted to take his mind off the painful events of the day.

When Dom got in, he found Matt’s things gone, as he expected. His letter to Matt was still there but he knew it had been read; it was wrinkled in places, and the writing smudged a bit, and Dom knew Matt had cried onto this letter before leaving. His heart kicked up a gear and he chewed at his lip, before ringing Matt on impulse.

“Dom? What’s wrong?” Matt answered on the second ring.

“Nothing’s wrong with me,” Dom said impatiently. “Are you alright, Matt?”

“I…fine.” Matt spoke in a small voice, and he sounded very tired.

“I know you were crying when you were here. I’m worried about you. What’s the matter?”

Matt sighed. “Dominic, do you…do you think…” He struggled to find the right words. “I know what you did last night, Dom. I’m not stupid; I put the pieces together. You got pissed, and you went home and slept with a stranger, and that’s why you didn’t answer your phone this morning, because you were unconscious in his or her bed. I know we’re not really in a proper relationship at the moment, but…I can’t pretend to you that it doesn’t hurt.”

Dom was frozen in horror. He had not expected Matt to figure it out – at least, not yet. “Matthew, I…” He fell silent. What could he say? He could hardly deny the truth. “I didn’t…I wasn’t doing it to hurt you,” he said softly, rubbing at his face as he searched for a way to fix it. “That is the absolute last thing I wanted to do. I never, ever wanted to hurt you. I just…wanted to get pissed and forget all the pain for a bit, and…I thought a strip club would be fun, and then I woke up and…I didn’t mean to. I was plastered.”

Matt sighed sorrowfully. “Forget it, Dom. It’s just nice to know how much I mean to you.”

“No, Matt,” Dom said forcefully. “I was out of my mind. I wasn’t myself, I was completely trashed. If I’d been thinking straight – thinking at all – the thought would never have even crossed my mind. Matthew, you _know_ how much you mean to me.”

“That’s just the thing though, isn’t it? I really don’t.”

There was a long pause as Dom considered his next words carefully. He had to be honest, he had to be direct. Matt had to believe and trust him. “I want you to come home,” he said, very quietly.

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want to be without you anymore!” Dom blurted. “Because no matter how wrong things have gone in the last few months, this – being here without you – feels all wrong and I feel like part of me is _missing_ without you!” Dom wasn’t sure if he should admit to it, but he was scared, too. Separated as they were, he couldn’t keep an eye on Matt, couldn’t see what was going on with him. Matt had confessed the other day that he’d thought of killing himself and Dom was so scared he might follow through on that threat and he wouldn’t be there to stop him.

The silence lasted long enough that Dom wondered if Matt had hung up on him. Then, “Maybe you should have thought of that before you went off and slept with someone else,” Matt bit out, and then he really _did_ hang up.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I don't understand your heart. It's easier to be apart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Author:** stormonmyskin  
>  **Pairing:** Belldom  
>  **Rating:** r/15?? For now.  
>  **Beta:** No beta, all mistakes my own.  
>  **Warnings:** Angst angst angst. Maybe smut later but emphasis on later. **_ANGST._** Mentions of suicide.  
>  **Summary:** I don't understand your heart. It's easier to be apart.  
>  **Disclaimer:** Obviously this never happened. I don't own Muse. If I did trust me I would not be sitting here writing about them....  
>  **Author's Note:** Tom arrives.

Matt stared at the phone in his hand. Had he really just said that?

He wasn’t normally so bitter and angry; it had just spiked out of him. He had wanted to _hurt_ Dom. To make him understand that what he had done was _not okay_. Especially not now. They weren’t in a real relationship at that moment but the situation was very delicate and Matt had desperately needed to know he could trust Dom, that Dom truly did want him back, that Dom was willing to try and make this work. It takes two to tango – Matt couldn’t support this relationship on his own. And Dom had gone out and shagged somebody else. It _hurt_.

His phone beeped. Him. He opened the message.

_Matt,_  
I know you’re angry and upset. I don’t blame you. I’m so sorry.  
It’s all the clichés, but it meant nothing. It wasn’t the sex I did it for, just the way it made me forget the pain. It hurts to be without you, Matthew.  
Anyway, I wanted to say – what you said the other day really bothered me. You’re upset, you’re hurting, you’re angry, but Matt – please, please don’t do anything to hurt yourself. I’m begging you.  
I’m sorry,  
Dom. 

Matt sighed. They’d made such a mess.

He put his phone down, and headed into the kitchen. He needed to cook.

Three hours later, Matt was filling his freezer with boxes of homemade pasta. Cooking was like therapy for him, it helped clear his mind, so he’d concentrated on the way the ingredients mixed, the feel of the pasta dough under his hands as he worked it. It was satisfying.

He straightened up, shut the freezer door, and stretcher, then looked at the clock. Late enough that it was reasonable for him to try and go to bed. He didn’t think he’d get much sleep that night, so he rifled through his medicine box and found himself a packet of nytol, forcing the required dose down his throat with a couple of swigs of water.

Dom stared at his phone desolately. Matt hadn’t replied to his text. Part of him wasn’t surprised, but part of him had hoped Matt would reply and reassure Dom he wouldn’t do anything stupid. He couldn’t shift the heart-pounding fear that the next time his phone rang it would be the hospital or something.

Matt woke sleepily the next morning. The nytol had done its job and helped him drop off to sleep but now he realised just how exhausted he was, emotionally wrung out from the days of turmoil. He lay in bed, cuddling down under the covers. It was warm under there, and he was safe, he was protected from the world and its hurt.

He did eventually get up, and decide to go for a run and a swim. Both things always made him feel better, he liked the rush of endorphins and he wanted to get out of his flat and get moving, get active. If he stayed in all day he would just wallow in being miserable.

 

Dom went round the house, cleaning. He didn’t know what else to do with himself and since he’d slipped up so badly he was determined to be a model boyfriend in the future. He wanted the house spick and span so that should Matt return unexpectedly he would find everything spotless. He tidied and folded and cleaned and wiped, a room at a time, and poured love into everything he cleaned. Because Matt had to come back. He _had_ to. Dom could not entertain the notion that he might not.

He flopped down on the sofa and sighed, wishing for the millionth time he hadn’t gone out and got drunk. He knew that had he not wound up in bed with that girl, he might have Matt back in his arms where he wanted him now. They could be fixing things. But he’d gone and hurt Matt deeply and he wasn’t sure what it would take to convince Matt just how disgusted he was with himself, just how little his fling had meant, just how much he loved the man – more than anything else on the planet, more than his own life.

 

Matt let himself back into his flat, looking down at his phone as it buzzed with an incoming call in his hand. Tom. He swiped to answer it, and put it to his ear as he shut the door behind him.

“Hey, Tom, how it’s going?” he answered easily. Tom was so easy. Nothing was ever difficult with Tom. He was easy to talk to, easy to be around, easy to be friends with.

“Matt. I’m alright thanks. Look, I’ve just spoken to Chris. He told me you and Dom had split up?” As usual, he got straight to the point. Tom was not one to dither and dance around a subject. It was something Matt liked about him. You always knew where you were with Tom. If you’d pissed him off, he told you about it.

Matt dumped his sports bag on the floor in the hall, headed over to the settee and slumped down onto it with a sigh, running one hand through chlorine-y hair and pulling a cushion out from behind him, hugging it to his stomach. “Yeah.”

There was a few moments of silence as Tom waited for him to go on. Then, when he didn’t, he prompted Matt. “So…is there a reason? Is it permanent? Are you still speaking? What about the band? Have you moved out?”

Matt took a deep breath against the barrage of questions. “Okay. Yeah, well, we just seemed to grow apart. I realised all of a sudden I barely knew him anymore, and he barely knew me. It was like we were strangers living in the same house. I didn’t know how to make it better, so I decided to move out for a bit to give us space to think about what we want. And then…then he went out and shagged some girl so now I don’t know what to do or whether I’ll be going back at all and last night I hung up the phone on him so I guess you could say we’re not really speaking now and I don’t know what’s happening with the band but it seems like at the moment everything’s kind of ground to a halt because Chris has gone home to be with his kids and Dom and I can’t be at the studio together right now and…and I might have told Dom I’d had fleeting thoughts of…y’know, ending it all and I think I scared him and-” his resolve broke, his voice wobbling all over the place. “I don’t know what to do,” he finished softly. His vision blurred and tears began to fall.

“Where are you?” Tom asked quietly when Matt had finished. Matt gave him the address. To his relief, Tom didn’t comment on the fact that he’d moved out of his city-boy flat – he didn’t know how to explain his reasons behind the move really, it had just felt right. Instead, Tom just said, in the same quiet tone, “I’m on my way over.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I don't understand your heart. It's easier to be apart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Author:** stormonmyskin  
>  **Pairing:** Belldom  
>  **Rating:** r/15?? For now.  
>  **Beta:** No beta, all mistakes my own.  
>  **Warnings:** Angst angst angst. Maybe smut later but emphasis on later. **_ANGST._** Mentions of suicide.  
>  **Summary:** I don't understand your heart. It's easier to be apart.  
>  **Disclaimer:** Obviously this never happened. I don't own Muse. If I did trust me I would not be sitting here writing about them....  
>  **Author's Note:** Tom steps in.  
> 

Matt had composed himself by the time Tom arrived. He’d dried his tears, washed his face, had a shower to get the chlorine out of his hair. He saw Tom’s car pull up outside, and went into the kitchen to make a cup of tea while he waited for Tom to get the lift up to his flat, on the 3rd floor.

Matt had just finished pouring the tea when the knock came, and he headed through to open the door. He greeted Tom and beckoned him through to the living area then went to add milk to the tea and brought it through. Tom smiled gratefully. “Thanks Matt.” Both of them settled on the settee.

“So…do you want to talk about it?” Tom asked after a few minutes of silence. Matt stared moodily at his cup of tea, and wondered what to say.

“I don’t know what there is to talk about, Tom,” he said quietly. Tom winced at the sharp undercurrent of pain in Matt’s voice and knew Dom would have no idea just how deeply he’d injured his friend by going and sleeping with someone else. Matt had always felt emotions more deeply than other people, and Dom had betrayed his trust at the worst possible time.

“So you were growing apart, you say?” Tom began.

“Yeah. You must have noticed it, you _must_ have. There was such distance between us. I hadn’t noticed it but one night I was tossing and turning and just suddenly realised that the situation had become untenable. It was like I didn’t know him anymore, Tom, like we didn’t know each other anymore. And I didn’t know what to do about it, so I decided to get some space. I thought maybe if we were physically apart we would be able to figure out what we wanted, we would realise if we could fix it or not. I was only going to stay away a week or so because…” His breathing hitched and he cursed himself; he’d promised himself to keep his emotions under control. “I still love him, Tom. That’s not changed, not at all. And it feels all wrong without him. But then I called him one morning and he didn’t answer. And he didn’t answer the house phone either. And I knew it could only mean he wasn’t home and he was unconscious somewhere so that his phone wasn’t waking him. And he’s admitted it; he went out, got out of his mind drunk and went home with some girl. And I don’t know if I’m taking it too hard but it _hurts_ so much, Tom. It _really_ hurts. It’s just this moment when I needed to know if I could trust him, if I could put my faith in him to fight for us, to fight to make this work, and…”

Tom rubbed a hand down Matt’s arm. “It’s alright to be upset,” he said softly as Matt dashed at the tears leaking out of his eyes.

“I don’t _want_ to be upset, I don’t want to let my emotions get the better of me. I’m a grown up and I should have more control of my feelings. But what am I supposed to do, Tom? How am I supposed to trust him not to do it again?”

“You can’t,” Tom said simply. “Not for a while, you won’t be able to, and it’ll only be with time that you’ll learn to trust him again. Matt, if I know Dom, and I do…he’ll do anything to win you back. You may have grown apart, he may have done a stupid thing, but you said it yourself – he was out of his mind drunk, and he had just been left by the love of his life – because you _are_ the love of his life, don’t you doubt it for a second. He was hurting and he wanted to not hurt and it made him forget the pain for a little while. I don’t for a moment believe he would have done it had he been in control of his faculties because you are everything to him and he would never want to hurt you.”

“I _used_ to be everything to him,” Matt said dully. “I don’t think that’s the case anymore.”

“Yes, it is, Matt,” Tom said quietly. “And do you know what? I can prove it.” He got his phone out. “I was interviewing Dom, for the DVD extras or something. Watch this.”

He hit play on his phone and held it so Matt could see. They watched Dom greet the camera and answer a few questions about how the album was going. Then Tom, from nowhere, asked very bluntly, _“Are you and Matt planning to get married? Now that it’s legal and all…”_

Matt half-expected Dom to look embarrassed – it was a surprise to hear that kind of question out of Tom but it was something probably a lot of fans had been wondering about…

_“Well…” Dom said, shifting in his seat. “That depends on Matt, doesn’t it? I’d like to, though, one day…be nice to have it official, y’know? Nothing will ever change the fact that I love him more than he will ever know, but…” he laughed, presumably at the look on Tom’s face. “You weren’t expecting me to answer that, were you? Well…everyone knows – why shouldn’t I talk about it? Yeah. He’s the love of my life. He’s my world. Of course I’d marry him if he wanted to, in a heartbeat, why would I not want to?” He gave a dazzling smile. There was a beat of silence, and then Tom started on another question about the music._

Matt had turned and buried his face in the arm of his jumper. His shoulders were heaving. Tom wrapped an arm around him and drew him close. “It’s alright, Matt. You’re alright.”

Dom and Matt had always been so solid. Tom couldn’t remember the last time he’d had to cheer either one of them up after a bad fight, if ever.

“Do you think I should forgive him, Tom?” A tiny voice came from the face currently pressed into Tom’s shoulder.

Tom puffed out a sigh. “That’s a tough one, Matt, because I’m not you. He’s hurt you badly, and you will need time to get over this. I don’t think you should run back to his arms before you’re ready, before you feel you can get past this, because that will just spell trouble.”

“Makes sense,” Matt mumbled. He sat up, scrubbing at his face. “It still hurts. So I’m not ready.” Tom rubbed his arm encouragingly again.

“Matt, I have to ask…did you mean what you said? About…potentially hurting yourself?”

Matt rubbed a hand down his face. “At the time, yes, a bit, because I felt so hopeless and so despairing…and then when he confessed to what he’d done, a bit…now…I don’t know…I shouldn’t have said anything because Dom keeps asking me to promise not to do anything stupid and I think he’s worried. But part of me wants to let him worry, wants to hurt him back.”

“I can understand that. But if you think you might do something stupid…pick up the phone and give me a call and we’ll sort you out, alright? I don’t want anything to happen to you, nor does Dom, nor Chris, nor anyone. You’re very important to us, okay?”

Matt nodded gently. “I will, Tom, thanks, although I don’t think it will come to that. It was a stupid thing to say.”

“No,” Tom countered gently. “Not stupid. It’s how you feel. That’s not stupid.”

Tom’s phone buzzed, and both men looked down to see a name flash on the screen. Dom.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I don't understand your heart. It's easier to be apart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Author:** stormonmyskin  
>  **Pairing:** Belldom  
>  **Rating:** r/15?? For now.  
>  **Beta:** No beta, all mistakes my own.  
>  **Warnings:** Angst angst angst. Maybe smut later but emphasis on later. **_ANGST._** Mentions of suicide.  
>  **Summary:** I don't understand your heart. It's easier to be apart.  
>  **Disclaimer:** Obviously this never happened. I don't own Muse. If I did trust me I would not be sitting here writing about them....
> 
>  **Author's Note:** Bit of a filler chapter really but parts of it will become important later and I thought it would be nice to have a bit of a break from the angst. The calm before the storm, if you will. Also points to anyone who can tell me why Dom uses that locker [it's probably really obvious but I was really pleased with myself :P]

Matt bit his lip as Dom’s name flashed up followed by lines of text. Tom studied Matt’s face carefully before picking his phone up. “It’s just a text. I’ll just make sure it’s not urgent.” Matt nodded.

_“Tom,_  
You heard from Matt today? He hung up on me last night and…I’m just a bit worried about him.  
I’m off to the gym now, but if you get in touch with him, will you let me know?  
Cheers,  
Dom.” 

Tom’s eyes flicked back to Matt’s face. “He’s worried because he’s not heard from you and he wanted to know if I’ve spoken to you today. I’m going to say I have, alright?” Matt nodded.

“Yeah, of course. It’s not my business who you text, Tom,” Matt said, with a flick of eyebrow. Tom frowned slightly, but dropped his eyes back to his phone anyway, and began to type a reply.

_“Dom,_  
Yeah, I’ve seen him today. I know what’s going on. He’s alright, you don’t need to worry.  
Tom.” 

 

Dom was going spare. He’d not heard back from Matt since he’d hung up on him last night, He somewhat doubted Matt’s ability to hurt himself, but…the not-knowing and the doubt was torture, so he caved, and texted Tom, who thankfully replied promptly to say Matt was alright and that he shouldn’t worry. _Easy for Tom to say._

He stopped himself asking Tom what Matt had had to say, and instead busied himself with getting ready to go to the gym. Nothing like a good workout to take your mind off things. He wasn’t going to drum himself to exhaustion again because he had paid for falling asleep slumped against the wall, but a good trip the gym, some running, weights, maybe even some swimming…it sounded good to Dom. He never usually had much time for the gym while they were in the studio making an album but he had decided to stay away from the studio for a few days.

 

Matt saw Tom out of the door, then swallowed, and headed to the bathroom. He stood in front of the full length mirror and took a long hard look at himself. He was _not_ going to be defeated by this. He would take as long as he needed to find a way to get past the pain and betrayal of what Dom had done and then he would go back to him and everything would be alright.

He squared his shoulders and lifted his chin slightly. Tom had said something about Dom going to the gym today, so Matt decided he would head to the studio for the rest of the day and get to work on some new songs. It would just be him, his guitar and his piano.

 

The gym was empty when Dom arrived. It was just gone 12pm and it would start filling up soon for the lunch-hour rush, but he had arrived in good time to bag his favourite treadmill – yes, he had a favourite – and he could run off his emotions until it had quietened down, and which point he would head to the weights for a bit. He quickly got changed and stowed his bag in his usual locker, 96, then headed to his preferred treadmill and began to key in the settings. Start off slow, ramp it up, that was the way to do it. He’d just started to jog when the door opened and two slightly overweight men came in, eyes glued to their phones – businessmen, working through their lunch hour.

They moved in silence to two treadmills a bit along from Dom, and despite clearly knowing each other, continued to not say a word as they started. Neither one took their eyes from their phones for more than a minute while they were there. Dom shook his head.

A small woman that he’d seen there before came in and headed to the exercise bikes. A middle-aged, weary looking man came in and went straight to the cross trainer. Two professional looking women came in together, headphones in, and headed to the lat pull down machines. Dom observed them all as they all ignored each other and went about their exercises, then began to trickle out as the last few minutes of their lunch hours ticked away. A couple of late stragglers, and then Dom had the gym to himself again, except for a blonde woman who was panting away on the treadmill next to him. He slowed his machine to a halt, wiped the sweat from his brow, and climbed off, weaving through the various pieces of equipment until he reached the weights, rubbing at his biceps in anticipation.

 

Matt chewed the end of his pencil as he leaned over his piano keys to scribble some notes down. He didn’t really need to write it down – in fact, he’d already written most of the song mentally – but it occasionally helped him to organise his thoughts.

He had sat down at the piano and let his fingers run over the keys, the music flowing like water from his fingertips. What he played tended to reflect his mood and today it had a pensive feel to it, and a sharp melancholic tinge. Minor chords were the order of the day and his hands kept gravitating to the far right hand end.  
Then his fingers began to repeat a particular melody over and over and a tune began to grow in his mind, twisting and warping and settling until he could hear it even after he’d lifted his hands from the keys and let the notes fade. It was a sweetly sad song at the start, which put him in mind of third part of his Exogenesis Symphony, but he could hear it building swiftly towards the middle, twisting and becoming darker, more stabby – he imagined it would be accompanied by booming drums and an aggressive bassline and guitar at this point – before settling again toward the end, becoming calmer, not reverting back to the sharp sadness of the start but finding a middle ground somehow.

He found himself uncertain, though. He knew that, whilst he had not written lyrics yet, he was putting a lot of his hurt into this song. It was going to be very difficult introducing this song to the others because they would know exactly where the emotion was coming from.

He frowned, put the pencil to the paper, and chewed his lip instead, deciding to write notes for Chris. He wanted the song to feature bass quite heavily all the way through and he wanted Chris to understand the subtle nuances and differences between the three main sections of the song.

 

Dom sighed as he shut the front door. He hated coming back to the house knowing Matt and his things were gone. It was too quiet, too empty. He dumped his gym bag and sat down at the island in the kitchen, buried his head in hands, and began to weep quietly.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I don't understand your heart. It's easier to be apart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Author:** stormonmyskin  
>  **Pairing:** Belldom  
>  **Rating:** r/15?? For now.  
>  **Beta:** No beta, all mistakes my own.  
>  **Warnings:** Angst angst angst. Maybe smut later but emphasis on later. **_ANGST._** Mentions of self-harming.  
>  **Summary:** I don't understand your heart. It's easier to be apart.  
>  **Disclaimer:** Obviously this never happened. I don't own Muse. If I did trust me I would not be sitting here writing about them....  
>  **Author's Note:** Dom can't stay there anymore.

Dom wandered round the house desolately. The scent of Matthew was starting to fade because he hadn’t been there for almost a week now. He’d been food shopping and bought only things that he ate because Matthew wasn’t there. The laundry basket was filled with Dom’s clothes and nothing else. Even Matthew’s bed was starting to smell more like Dom than like Matthew, seeing as Dom slept in there every night. His own bed had lain untouched since the day Matthew had left.

Matthew’s presence was slowly fading from the house. Day by day, he was being lost from this place.

Dom couldn’t bear it.

They had crafted this place together. It had been Matt’s house first, but he hadn’t had it for long when Dom moved in. They had made it theirs together. Done it up together. Decorated it exactly as they wanted it, furnished it, everything, _together_. This was _their_ house, in every way except in the eyes of the law. And to have Matt fading from it, like a ghost, was too much for Dom to cope with. The pain of the mess they were currently in was bad enough but this…this was like the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.

He had spoken to Tom yesterday evening. Tom had not told him much of what Matt had said, but he had told him that he had extracted from Matt a promise not to hurt himself, but to call Tom if he was thinking about it. Dom knew he had to trust Matt on that, and he had to trust Tom, as well. But he couldn’t stay in the house on his own any longer.

He picked up the phone and called his mum to let her know he was coming to stay and would be there in a few hours. Then he packed a small bag of personal belongings, and with a weary sigh, he locked up the house and got in his car. Back to Devon. Back to his hometown have his broken heart nursed by his mum’s too-sweet tea and fairy cakes.

 

Matt woke from another nytol-induced sleep very slowly the next morning. He’d tossed and turned for an hour the night before, before giving in and taking the sleep-inducing medicine, and then his exhaustion had taken over and he had slept until 11am. He pulled the duvet up to his chin and stared at the ceiling. He was thinking of going to the studio again today, to lay down some piano tracks, but worried that Dom might have gone in today.

He comforted himself with thinking that even if Dom was in they would be at opposite ends of the studio in different rooms – for now Matt had his piano in its own room so he could work in peace. He would have it moved to the live room later when the recording got more serious. His stomach grumbled loudly and reminded him he was missing breakfast, so with a sleepy groan and rub of his eyes he rolled out of bed to face the day, flattening his mussed up hair with one hand.

He needn’t have worried anyway, as it transpired, as Dom was not in the studio – his car was not there when Matt pulled into the car park, relieved to see no fans loitering at the gates as the last thing he wanted to do was talk to anyone, and he made his way inside quietly, heading straight to the back where his piano room was and closing the door with a soft click. He felt his stomach lift. Alone with his piano. No-one could get him in here.

 

Dom indicated with relief, and turned into his mum’s driveway, stifling a yawn as he pulled the car to a halt under the bay window and put the handbrake on firmly. It had been a long drive and he was glad to finally arrive. He had been left to his rather dismal thoughts for too long, the car radio doing nothing to distract him.

He didn’t even have his car door open before his mum was flustering down the front steps towards him, still wearing her apron. She tugged him out of the car and leaned up to put her arms around him – she was tiny. He laughed, despite himself. “Hey mum.” She squeezed him tightly and he leant down to make it easier on her and squeezed her back gently.

“Youuuu,” she said cheerfully, pulling back and rubbing his cheek with affection, her grey eyes – which Dom and his sister had inherited – shining with love. “It’s been too long. I haven’t seen you for ages. Come on, get inside.” She tried to usher him towards the door but he paused, gently batting her arms away. “I’ll just get my suitcase out the boot, mum.”

She stood on the steps waiting and clucking, hands on hips, and when he reached her, suitcase in hand, she bustled him inside, fussing all the while, so happy to have him home. The aroma of baking filled Dom’s nose and he smiled. Exactly as he had expected.

 

Matt pottered round the basic studio kitchen making lunch. He’d called at the deli on the way and brought some bread, cheese and olives with him. As he worked, he thought about what Dom had said in the video Tom had shown him. He had said he loved Matt more than Matt would ever know…that Matt was the love his life, his world. This had only been a couple of weeks ago – before either of them had figured out that there was something wrong, but things had been very wrong at that point, and yet Dom had still said it.

And he had said that he would marry Matt, if it would make him happy. Matt thought about that for a bit, imagined it. He and Dom in suits, in a nice place somewhere that meant a lot to them – not a church, maybe, or maybe so if they could find the right one – somewhere meaningful, surrounded by all their family and friends, everyone that was important to them. He imagined Dom looking radiant in a black suit and tie, all lean angles and golden hair under the sunshine. He imagined his mum and Dom’s mum hugging each other and crying with happiness at seeing their two sons declare their love for each other in front of everyone.

It was an appealing scene playing in his mind’s eye, he couldn’t deny. One that Matt, if he was being very honest with himself, wanted badly. The marriage part was not all that important to him, but the significance of exchanging words of love in front of everyone…of how glowingly happy Dom would be, clutching Matt to his side possessively, because Matt was his and no-one else’s in the whole world…

He put the knife he was slicing bread with down and leaned on the counter, one hand going to his chest, surprised at the intensity of pain in his heart as he allowed his imagination to paint a picture of a glorious day. He wanted it. He wanted to gaze into those grey eyes and hold his hands and say “I do,” wanted Chris and Tom stood next to them as best men, beaming proudly.

If he wanted this this badly, then did that mean he was ready to take Dominic back? If the mere thought of marrying him was enough to make his heart throb and bring tears to his eyes, did that indicate he had forgiven Dom? He wasn’t sure, but, as he picked up the knife again and continue to slice bread for his lunch, he did know that he wanted Dominic, wanted them to belong to each other forever, wanted to wake up every day with him for the rest of his life.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I don't understand your heart. It's easier to be apart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Author:** stormonmyskin  
>  **Pairing:** Belldom  
>  **Rating:** r/15?? For now.  
>  **Beta:** No beta, all mistakes my own.  
>  **Warnings:** Angst angst angst. Maybe smut later but emphasis on later. **_ANGST._**  
>  **Summary:** I don't understand your heart. It's easier to be apart.  
>  **Disclaimer:** Obviously this never happened. I don't own Muse. If I did trust me I would not be sitting here writing about them...  
>  **Author's Note:** The storm brews...  
> 

Matt let himself into their house. Dom’s car was not there and when he got in the house, he saw the reason why. Dom was clearly away, the house was all locked up and a load of his things were gone. He saw a piece of folded paper on the table with his name on it, and headed over to the table. He picked it up nervously, and unfolded it.

 _Matt,_  
If you call round, I’ve gone back to Teignmouth for a few days to see my mum. If you need to speak to me, please don’t hesitate to call me.  
Lots of love,  
Dom.

Matt smiled a little. That made sense. Nothing would help mend a broken heart like being with your mum. He’d thought about it himself, but then he’d got going on this new song… He bent down and gathered the post off the mat and added to it the post Dom had sorted before he left, from under the paperweight. He was just flicking through the stack of envelopes, when the house phone rang. He looked up, frowning, but went to answer it anyway.

“Hello?” he asked.

“Oh – hello,” a female voice he didn’t know said. “Is, er…is Dominic there please?”

“Who’s calling?”

“It’s – it’s Paula. From the other night? I’m sorry, is this the wrong number? I got it from his phone while he was sleeping, after we…well…did I write it wrong?”

“No. No, this is the right number,” Matt said in a hard voice. “He mentioned he’d had sex with you.” She giggled nervously. Matt thought he might be sick. “He’s not here right now. I’m afraid you’ve had a wasted call. Goodbye.”

He hung up the phone without waiting to hear her response, then turned his back to the wall and crumpled to the floor, burying his face in his knees. He’d been a fool to think he was already ready to move on from this. It still hurt. Hearing her voice, knowing her name, it brought all sorts of images which he didn’t want, made it all too real. He gave a soft whimper, then began to sob mournfully. He needed more time.

 

Dom’s mum put a cup of tea and a plate of biscuits down in front of him – his favourite biscuits, chocolate digestives.

“Dominic, love, you have to do something about this,” she said, perching on the edge of the sofa next to him and putting a hand on his thigh. Dom had confessed everything to her, including the bits he was ashamed of. And he had spent the last few days mostly just slouched on the sofa, in a fog of depression, hardly eating or going out. It pained his mum to see him like it.

He looked across at her miserable. “But what, mum? I’ve messed up big time. He’s all I want, all I’ve ever wanted, and I’ve pushed him away, I’ve hurt him, I let us drift apart without even noticing, and then – and then-” he choked off, shaking his head bitterly.

“You need to call him, love, and sort this out. You need to explain to him how you feel, how you love him, how you regret what you did. You need to be honest with him. Tell him how you feel, put the ball in his court. He’s crying out for love – you need to give it to him.”

Dom looked at her, hardly daring to hope there might be a way out of it. “Maybe you’re right.”

 

Later that afternoon saw Dom walking along the beach at Teignmouth, slightly hunched over, hands stuffed in his pockets, head down against the wind. The stiff breeze was whipping the sea up into a frenzy. The cold sea air blew around him and cleared his head, and the gusts kept blowing sea spraying into his face.

He reflected on all the time he had spent on and around this beach with Matt over the years, both as children and later, when they were in their teens, their twenties, and even more recently, in their early thirties. He could hear Matthew’s laughter echo around him as he splashed while they stood in the waves. He could seem him bite his lip shyly as they worked on sand art together.

They had laughed at each other’s antics countless times on this beach, and he had mended Matt’s broken heart when the girl he had fancied at school had announced she was pregnant by some other guy from their class, back before either of them really had embraced their sexuality.

He remembered Matt playing guitar for him here, demoing songs, some which they would go on to record and release, some which they wouldn’t, or sometimes just for enjoyment round a bonfire.

He could see Matt, falling breathlessly against the sand as Dom crawled over him, not long after they had become more than friends. They had explored each other’s bodies intimately with tongues on this beach, and told each other their deepest secrets. If he could choose a place to propose to Matt it would be here on this beach, with all its history.

He was jolted from his thoughts by his phone ringing and buzzing, and looked down, hoping to see Matt’s name.

A string of numbers blinked back at him, and his shoulders slumped disappointedly. He hit answer dejectedly, and put it to his ear. “Hello?”

“Dominic?” A female voice jingled in his ear. “It’s Paula? From last week? I got your number from your phone while you were sleeping.”  
He froze, placing the voice and remembering things he didn’t want to. “Right.”

“I was just wondering if…if you were free to grab a drink.”

“Oh,” Dom said stupidly. “Um…look, Paula, the thing is…well, I really shouldn’t have let the other night happen. I was really drunk…and, well…I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I can’t see you again. Nothing to do with you, I promise, but I’m sorry, I can’t.”

As he hung up the phone, after reassuring her it was nothing to do with her, nothing she had done, but his personal life was a mess, he felt the guilt crash over him in waves like the ones relentlessly pounding the sand beside him. He slumped down against the sea wall, ignoring the way the wet sand plastered to his clothes, and buried his face in his hands.

He wouldn’t blame Matt if he decided he never wanted to see him again. He was a terrible person and it would be no more than he would deserve. He wondered how he was supposed to live with himself, though, if he had managed to push the person who meant the most to him in all the world away for ever. 


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I don't understand your heart. It's easier to be apart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Author:** stormonmyskin  
>  **Pairing:** Belldom  
>  **Rating:** r/15?? For now.  
>  **Beta:** No beta, all mistakes my own.  
>  **Warnings:** Angst angst angst. Maybe smut later but emphasis on later. **_ANGST._** Strong language. Character death.  
>  **Summary:** I don't understand your heart. It's easier to be apart.  
>  **Disclaimer:** Obviously this never happened. I don't own Muse. If I did trust me I would not be sitting here writing about them...
> 
> Author's Note: The storm breaks...  
>  The eye of the storm is upon us, you could say.  
> Please note: PLEASE READ THE WARNINGS. I'm not in the business of upsetting people. I aim to entertain. If you think it may bother you, please don't read.

Matt swiped his pass and shouldered his way into the studio. He headed down to the control room to dump his coat, and froze, blinking, as he pushed the door open. Tom and Chris were on the sofa, Chris strumming something on his bass. He rolled his eyes at himself. Why was he surprised? He had seen both their cars in the car park, but they hadn’t really registered. He had been deeply lost in thought.

They both looked up at him as he walked in, and Chris brought his hand down on the strings with a soft tap. “Hey, Matt,” he smiled as the quiet music halted. Tom looked a little more concerned, but gave a little wave and smiled at Matt easily nonetheless.

“How are you?” Tom asked, laying down the video camera he was holding and getting up to go over to Matt. Matt shrugged his coat off and hung it up on the pegs. “Yeah, alright, I suppose. How about you?”

Tom nodded. “I’m good.” He ran a hand through his hair and discreetly appraised his friend. Chris had pushed his bass to one side and came over to join them. He put a big hand on Matt’s shoulder. “Alright?” Matt dipped his head in response, and edged towards the seating area.

Taking the hint, they all sat back on the sofa and got comfortable. “I haven’t seen either of you for ages,” Chris said. “Is…is it just you that’s come down?” It was clear he was referencing Dom’s absence.

Matt looked down at his hands. “Um, yeah,” he said quietly. “Dom has gone to Teignmouth to see his mum.”

Chris was frowning. “How bad are things, Matt?” Tom had only told Chris that they had had a fight and things weren’t good. He hadn’t given him any details.

Matt shrugged. “Pretty bad, Chris. I’ll be honest. I…” His voice cracked. Chris’ eyebrows shot up. “We…well…things went wrong, so I moved out to give us a bit of space to decide what to do and what we wanted, and Dom…” He tailed off, unable to finish. Chris looked quizzically at Tom, who quickly stepped in. “Dom decided it would be a good idea to go out and get drunk and get laid,” he finished quietly. Chris put his head in his hands. “Fucking hell.”

Matt looked uncomfortable. “I had a phone call yesterday,” he said quietly. “I was at the house collecting my post and the house phone rang. It was her. The girl he shagged. I thought maybe I was over it, and almost ready to take him back, but…it hurt, hearing her voice, learning her name… imagining things I didn’t want to imagine.”

Tom looked furious. “That’s shit. I’m so sorry, Matt.”

Matt just shrugged. “It is what it is. I haven’t heard from him in a few days. I’m just going to wait for him to call me and see what happens. Anyway,” he rubbed his hands on his thighs. “Guys, will you… I’ve got a new song for the album.”

“Oh,” Chris seemed surprised. “Let’s hear it then.”

“It’s on piano,” Matt stood up and headed for the piano room.

By the time he had finished playing them the song he had written, letting the last note linger tremulously in the air, Tom’s eyes were damp, and Matt was surprised to see even Chris’ eyes shone with a sheen of tears. He looked at them nervously, clearing his throat and twiddling his fingers.

“Matt, that was…” Chris started, but couldn’t finish, choked up with emotion.

Tom made an agreeing noise in his throat. “Wow.”

“Does it have anything to do with what’s been happening?” Chris had pulled a sheet of paper towards him, which was covered in Matt’s untidy scrawl: lyrics.

Matthew scratched at his nose and pulled a fleck of lint from his shirt. He didn’t usually let them see lyrics before it was finished, and if he did, he rarely explained them. He was uncomfortable as he watched them read the scribbled words, which had burst from his brain complete and ready to go.

There was a long silence as Matt shifted in his seat, eyes lighting on anything but the two men in the room with him, while they read and digested. Chris was the first to speak.

“This ends very positively,” he said in a deliberately offhand tone. Matt could tell he was trying to be casual about. He scratched nervously at his blue shirt and rubbed at the back of his neck.

“Yeah, it’s kind of…well, you can probably tell where the song is coming from. I don’t…I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about it all…I’ve…in the last day or so, to be honest I’ve kind of come to the conclusion that I can see where he is coming from…I can sort of understand why he did what he did. D’you know what I mean? I mean…well, I left…”

“It’s no excuse, though,” Tom interjected. Matt didn’t blame himself for it, did he?  
“No, I know that,” Matt said. “I just kind of…well…I can understand his reasons for it is all. It doesn’t mean I think it’s right, doesn’t mean I’m not still angry and really hurt. But I can see how he got there, why he did it.”

Tom frowned, and shrugged, and Chris raised his hands in the air. “Well, mate, if you can understand,” he said slowly. “That’s probably the next step to forgiveness. I don’t think I’d be able to be as understanding and I think he’s a little shit for doing that to you and the next time I see him I’ll be giving him a piece of my damn mind, but…I think it’s a good thing.”

They talked for quite a bit longer and then Matt and Chris started working on the bass for the new song whilst Tom watched and filmed some of their banter and discussions.

In the end, it was quite late when Matt left the studio. He pulled his collar up around him and regretted not wearing his coat with the hood as he hunched his shoulders against the rain. He was walking to the tube station to catch the train home, and it was a typical 11pm for London – dark and raining. The orange haze of the streetlights was casting an eerie glow across everything and the traffic was complaining angrily at each other, horns blaring and lights flashing.

He turned the corner and burrowed further into his flimsy jacket – it had been bright sunshine that day, more fool him for not checking the weather forecast.

He passed a pedestrian crossing and briefly debated whether to cross and take a different route or keep going, but decided to continue on – not much further to the tube station, and then only a short walk to his flat at the other end. He heard the beeping to say someone else was crossing there, and then a cacophony of horns erupted into the air somewhere behind him and he grimaced. He turned in the street upon hearing an angry screech of brakes to see headlights blazing into his face before darkness descended.


	13. Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I don't understand your heart. It's easier to be apart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Author:** stormonmyskin  
>  **Pairing:** Belldom  
>  **Rating:** r/15?? For now.  
>  **Beta:** No beta, all mistakes my own.  
>  W **arnings:** Angst angst angst. Maybe smut later but emphasis on later. **_ANGST._**  
>  **Summary:** I don't understand your heart. It's easier to be apart.  
>  **Disclaimer:** Obviously this never happened. I don't own Muse. If I did trust me I would not be sitting here writing about them...

Dom would never forget the day he got that phone call.

He’d been making lunch in the kitchen with his mum, when his phone buzzed in his pocket. He fished it, and looked down at his phone to see Tom’s name in the caller display.

“It’s Tom, mum, I’d better answer.” He frowned, but hit the green button.

“Hello, Tom, what’s up?”

“Dom. How fast can you get to London?”

Dom did the mental maths. “Uh, about 3 hours. Why?”

“Matt’s been hit by a car.”

Dom had frozen in the middle of the kitchen.

“Dominic, love? Dominic? What’s wrong?” His mum’s hand in the small of his back.

“I’m on my way,” he told Tom.

“I’ll text you directions,” Tom said. “Get going, Dom.” Dom had hung up, then stared at his mum in horror.

“Mum, I…I have to go,” he said, somewhat dazed. “I…that was Tom. Matthew’s been hit by a car.”

Dom’s mum looked shocked, and started to usher him from the kitchen. “Go, go. Don’t worry about your things. Just go. He needs you.”

Dom nodded numbly at her, snagging his car keys from the hook in the hall. “I’ll call you when I know what’s happening,” he said, and got in his car, trying to still the shaking in his hands. He needed to get to London, as soon as he could manage. And hope, and pray, to whatever God may or may not exist, that Matthew wasn’t lost to him forever.  



	14. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I don't understand your heart. It's easier to be apart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Author:** stormonmyskin  
>  **Pairing:** Belldom  
>  **Rating:** r/15?? For now.  
>  **Beta:** No beta, all mistakes my own.  
>  **Warnings:** Angst angst angst. Maybe smut later but emphasis on later. **_ANGST._**  
>  **Summary:** I don't understand your heart. It's easier to be apart.  
>  **Disclaimer:** Obviously this never happened. I don't own Muse. If I did trust me I would not be sitting here writing about them...  
> 

“Matt. Matt?”

Voices swum around him, fuzzy and distant. “Matt? Matthew?”

He cracked his eyes open, but snapped them shut again quickly. Bright light. He screwed them up, then opened them slowly, giving them time to adjust. Shapes shimmered above him, out of focus and blurry. He blinked a few times and they resolved into the faces of Tom and Chris.

“Can you hear us?”

He attempted to speak. “Wha-” Only a small squeak of sound came out. He cleared his throat. Someone put a straw to his lips and he sucked in a mouthful of cool, fresh water. And then another, until no more would come, his mouth no longer felt like the Sahara and his tongue had unstuck from his teeth. He coughed and tried again. “What happened?”

“You gave us a right old scare, Matt,” Tom said, pretending to admonish, but relief was the dominant emotion on their faces. He turned his head to look from one to the other, wincing as pain stabbed through it. He raised one arm gingerly to it and felt bandages. The lick of pain brought heightened awareness with it and he began to feel other injuries. His ribs ached fiercely, his right leg, and hand.

“We’re not supposed to tell you anything til the doctor has seen you,” Chris said, hitting a button attached to his bed as he spoke.

The nurse came, saw he was awake, and went off to fetch a doctor. The doctor smiled a lot at Matt and said he was glad to see him awake, then asked him a lot of questions and shone a light in his eyes. Matt answered them all without really thinking about what he was saying, but the doctor seemed satisfied and told Chris and Tom they could tell him what had happened, before instructing Matt to call the nurse if he felt worse, and leaving them in peace.

“You were hit by a car,” Chris said promptly once they were alone. Matt’s eyebrows shot up.

“Yeah,” Tom agreed. “You did it properly as well. We’ve been very worried.”

Matt raised a hand to his bandaged head. “Did it properly?”

“Concussion,” Chris said. “You’ve been unconscious all night. You were brought in about 11pm and they called Tom at 1am. We both came straight down and we’ve been in the waiting room all night until they told us you had been admitted and we could see you at 2pm. It’s just gone 2.30pm now.”

“You’ll have some spectacular bruises, the doctors reckon,” Tom added. “All down your right side. And you’ve got two fractured ribs, a sprained knee, and two broken fingers on your right hand.”

“Did you check I’d be okay to play?” Matthew’s first concern was for his guitar and piano abilities. He held his right hand protectively in his left. Without his hands he was nothing.

Chris laid a reassuring hand on his arm. “It’s fine, Matt. It was the first thing I asked the doctor. He said you would make a full recovery and there would be no long term effects on your guitar and piano. They straightened your fingers so they will set properly.” His fourth and fifth fingers were taped to his middle finger and splinted up so he couldn’t bend them.

He exhaled in a puff, relieved. “Okay. Thanks.” A machine next to him beeped and more pain relief snaked into the IV in the back of his hand. “How did I get hit by a car?”

“Drunk driver,” Tom said, exchanging a glance with Chris. “He was skidding in the rain and mounted the pavement.”

“The police told us you were thrown onto the bonnet and then off the other side onto the road. The car hit a wall. You were lucky. He was going pretty fast when he hit you.”

Matt grimaced. “I just remember a screech of brakes…” he said, thinking hard and trying to break past the nagging headache. “A cacophony of horns…headlights in my face…then nothing.”  
Tom nodded. “Sounds about right. The police have been gathering witness statements. They’ll probably want to interview you, too, when you’re a bit better. I’m not sure what will happen, though, because…well…” Tom hesitated. “The driver didn’t make it after he hit the wall.”

Matt’s eyes widened a little, but it was too soon to really register. He was still floating on a haze of pain relief and concussion-induced sleepiness. “Do you know when I’ll be able to go home?” he asked after a pause.

“They’ll keep you in overnight for monitoring, they said that’s standard procedure after head injuries. They said they wanted to do some more scans to make sure the concussion stays a concussion and doesn’t turn into anything worse. But if that all goes okay, and you pass the psychological assessment, you should be able to go home sometime tomorrow.”

“On the condition that you have someone to take care of you, though,” Tom interjected. “You have to rest and take it easy for a few weeks. I was thinking I could come and stay with you. You’re not allowed to go home on your own, that’s for sure.”

“Oh, okay,” Matt said. “Well…that’s kind of you…I mean I could get my mum up…if that’s easier…”

“I don’t mind,” Tom shrugged, brown eyes oddly intense. “I wouldn’t mind coming to stay. You’ve had quite an ordeal. You need taking care of.”

Matt let it go, and snuggled into his pillows. “Feels like it,” he said as his ribs throbbed and pain stabbed through his head. Another dose of morphine hit his bloodstream and he relaxed a bit more.

Both his friends looked anxious. “Maybe you should have a sleep,” Tom suggested. Matt knew how hard this would be on Tom – the phone call to say Matt had been in a car accident would have terrified him. Chris looked tense, but he was still relatively calm – his hands were relaxed in his lap, whereas Tom’s were tightly balled into fists, and his jaw was clenched.

“I think that’s a good idea,” Matt said softly.

Tom glanced at his watch, knowing that Dom was on his way but not wanting to stress Matt out with that news. Chris was nodding in agreement, but Tom was shaking his head. Chris caught Tom’s eye, and caught on.

“Alright,” he said to Tom, agreeing to stay. “But Matt’s going to have a nap so how about we go back to the canteen and get some more coffee?”

As Matt dropped off to sleep, Chris was steering Tom out of the ward, trying to reassure him. 


	15. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I don't understand your heart. It's easier to be apart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Author:** stormonmyskin  
>  **Pairing:** Belldom  
>  **Rating:** r/15?? For now.  
>  **Beta:** No beta, all mistakes my own.  
>  **Warnings:** Angst angst angst. Smut soon. **_ANGST._**  
>  **Summary:** I don't understand your heart. It's easier to be apart.  
>  **Disclaimer:** Obviously this never happened. I don't own Muse. If I did trust me I would not be sitting here writing about them...  
> 

_Earlier_  
Chris took a sip of his coffee, surprisingly good for canteen coffee, then stilled as a thought occurred to him. He hurriedly set his cup down and reached out and put a hand on Tom’s arm urgently. “Tom!” he gasped.

“What?” Tom frowned at him, trying not to spill his own coffee.

“Dom. He doesn’t know.” It was already 12pm, over 12 hours since Matt had been injured, and nobody had told Dom.

Tom’s eyes widened. His hand dropped to his phone, lying on the canteen table. “I’ll call him.”

 

 _Now..._  
Dom roared up the M5. Tom had called him to say Matt had been in a car accident and was in hospital and he had left immediately, not bothering to pack anything, just telling his mum he was going. He was almost at the junction with the M4, and was chomping at the bit, his foot on the floor, desperate to reach London.

It was 3.30pm by the time he got to the hospital Matt was in, and he searched anxiously for a space, nipping into a place as someone pulled out. He checked his phone to find the text Tom had promised, telling him where to find Matt in the hospital. He bought a ticket and set off for the doors at a near run, his heart pounding in his chest. His whole being was focused on finding Matt, getting to Matt. Tom hadn’t given him any details about injuries – he had no idea how bad it was, he hadn’t hung around to find out. That Matt had been hurt seriously enough to wind up in hospital was all that he needed.

He hurried through the hospital corridors, searching desperately for the right ward. The hospital felt like a maze of halls with names he didn’t understand, filled with people trying to get in his way. He almost crashed into a bed in the hall, with a man on it hooked up to an oxygen tank. Is that what Matt would look like? He felt sick.

Finally, eventually, he found a sign above a door which said the name of the ward which Tom had told him, and pushed the door open with relief.

A doctor was stood at the nurses’ station as he approached, flipping through a patient’s chart. He looked up as he became aware of Dominic’s presence, and smiled. “Can I help you, sir?”

“Hi, yes,” Dom said faintly. He thought he must look a state because he saw a slight frown appear on the doctor’s face, his brown eyes colouring with concern. “My…my partner is on this ward…I just got a phone call…please, I need to see him; I need to know he’s okay…”

The doctor’s face cleared. “I see. What’s your partner’s name, sir, and what’s your name?”

“Uh…my- my name is Dominic, Dom. I’m here to see Matt – uh, Matthew, Matthew Bellamy, I…I think he was in a car accident…I was in Devon, I didn’t wait to get details; I just got in the car and drove…”

“That’s right, yes. Matthew was hit by a car late last night and brought into the Trauma Unit. If you’d like to follow me, I’m one of Mr Bellamy’s doctors, I can take you to see him.”

“Is he…” Dom swallowed fearfully. “Is he going to be okay?”

The doctor stopped and turned to Dom, laying a hand on his arm. “Dominic, I am hopeful your partner is going to make a full recovery. He was very lucky, to be honest. The nature of the accident could have caused far more catastrophic injuries, but in the end he got away quite lightly. Come on, come and see him.”

The doctor led him to a bed with the curtains drawn, and he poked his head in. “Matthew?” he said brightly. “How are we doing?” There was a pause. “There’s someone here to see you, he says he’s your partner, Dominic? Okay, then.” The doctor turned back to Dom and held the curtain open. “The curtains are drawn now because I’ve not long brought him back from a scan and we were getting him settled again – you’re quite welcome to go in. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask. Oh, and – don’t be alarmed. It looks worse than it is. The majority of his injuries are superficial cuts and bruising.” The doctor smiled at him, and Dom went in nervously.

Matt was half-sat up in bed, looking a bit dazed. He looked very little and vulnerable in the hospital bed. The right side of his face was beginning to blossom with bruise and his head was bandaged up. His right elbow was bandaged, and two fingers on his right hand were taped together. He could see the white glow of bandages under his hospital gown, around his chest. His blue, hospital-issue blanket was bunched at his ankles and Dom could see his right knee was also heavily bandaged, whilst the rest of his leg was a mass of little cuts and grazes and growing bruise. He had an IV drip feeding into the back of his hand, a blood pressure cuff on, and something resembling a clothes peg on his forefinger.

Dom dashed to the bed. “Matthew!” Matt was watching him, his eyes slightly glazed over from the pain medication they had him on. “Matthew,” Dominic breathed again, falling into the chair beside the bed and taking Matthew’s left hand gently between his two, tears of pure emotion welling up in his eyes at the sight before him.

“Dom?” Matt murmured softly, both shocked to see him and so pleased he had come.

“What happened? What happened to you?” Dom’s hands were shaking around Matt’s.

“There was a car, Dom…I was walking home…the driver died…”

“You terrified me, Matt. I just got a call from Tom to tell me you were in hospital and I should come up. This was nothing you did, was it? Promise me it was just an accident…”

“It was an accident, nothing more. I promise. The driver died…he was drunk…I was walking home from the studio, to the tube station…I don’t remember anything.”

Dom stared into the blue eyes of his best friend, beautiful even though they were groggy and hazy, and believed him. “And you’re going to be alright?” he pressed.

Matt dipped his head, then winced. “Yeah, I reckon so. Pretty bad concussion, 2 fractured ribs and 2 broken fingers, plus a sprained knee, but the rest is just cuts and bruises. They said I can probably go home tomorrow.”

Dom puffed out an enormous breath of relief and couldn’t help himself. He leaned forward and, with one hand gently cupped round the back of Matt’s head, so mindful of his injuries all the time, he leaned in and pressed his lips to Matt’s, needing to reassure himself, to feel him, intact under his lips, real and alive. Even though he didn’t know if they were still together or whether they could fix things, even though he’d messed up badly and hurt Matt badly and didn’t know how to make it better, he kissed him. And to his surprise – and relief, jubilation, delight – he felt Matt’s lips moving under his; despite everything, Matthew was kissing him back.


	16. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I don't understand your heart. It's easier to be apart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author: stormonmyskin  
> Pairing: Belldom  
> Rating: r/15?? For now.  
> Beta: No beta, all mistakes my own.  
> Warnings: Angst. Fluffy as candyfloss. The smut will come soon.  
> Summary: I don't understand your heart. It's easier to be apart.  
> Disclaimer: Obviously this never happened. I don't own Muse. If I did trust me I would not be sitting here writing about them...  
> Author's Note: This is the penultimate chapter. Next chapter will skip ahead quite a few months, and the smut I've been promising all along will finally appear.

Dom backed off from Matt when he needed air, looking a little embarrassed. Matt looked quite content, however, so he decided not to apologise, lest Matt get the wrong impression.

Just then, the curtain twitched. Chris’ head came through the gap. His eyes went round and he looked surprised. “Oh! Um. Hello, Dom,” he said with a frown. Tom’s head appeared next to him. The doctor looked amused, but looked pointedly at the ‘2 visitors only’ sign above Matt’s head.

Chris caught on first. He glanced at Tom, who still looked anxious, and shrugged. “I’ll get going, Tom, he’s only allowed two visitors at a time. Take care, Matt,” he said softly, and then was gone. Tom headed through the curtains to his bedside. The doctor smiled and, with a quick glance at Dom, left them in peace. “How are you feeling, Matt?” Was Tom’s first question.

Matt remembered not to nod in time, and just smiled. “I’m alright, Tom.” He was quite decidedly sleepy, and couldn’t make any further move to reassure his friend.

Dom shot an apprehensive look at Tom, but decided to push ahead anyway. He gently cradled Matt’s hand between his two. He opened his mouth to speak, but Tom got there first.

“The doctors say Matt can probably go home tomorrow,” he said to Dom, in a slightly harder voice than usual, something that was lost on Matt, but not Dom. “But only if he has someone to go home to that can look after him. He is on strict bed rest. So I’m moving into his flat for a few days, to take care of him.”

Dom blinked. “Oh.” He looked back at Matt. “Um.” He blinked again, then sat back. “If that’s what you want,” he said softly. But Matt had snuggled his head back against his pillows, and even as Dom spoke, his eyes fluttered shut.

“He’s on a fair amount of morphine,” Tom said. “And got a pretty bad knock on the head.”

Dom nodded. An awkward silence settled in the hospital room, and Dom and Tom both stared at their hands to avoid meeting each other’s eyes.

“Just so you know,” Tom said eventually. “If he forgives you, I’m sure we will, eventually. But if you hurt him like this again I’ll not hesitate to break your wrists.”

“I am the biggest idiot on the planet,” Dom murmured. “But I’ll not do anything to hurt him again. I did a very stupid thing because I was hurting. I learnt in the process that I can’t live without him. So I’ll not be reckless in future. You don’t need to worry about that.”

“Good,” Tom said harshly.

The two sat together in silence, Matt’s chest rising and falling softly between them as he slept on.

Eventually, Tom was driven out of the hospital by hunger and tiredness – it had been a long day for him and Chris, and he needed to go home and have a proper meal and a lie down. He left Dom with a glare, and Dom sat alone at Matt’s side.

A nurse came over at 5pm, to take Matt’s vitals. He woke up at the tightening of the blood pressure cuff, and looked around sleepily. As his eyes locked on Dom’s face, his lips quirked up into a smile.

“You stayed.”

“Where else would I be?” Dom asked softly, as the nurse finished what he was doing and left them in peace. Dom reached out to take Matt’s hand carefully, at Matt’s fingers curled round his immediately. His grip was fairly weak but Dom knew that was down to the drugs, and that the intent was there.

Matt’s eyes seemed glued to Dom’s face, like he couldn’t believe he was real, was actually there.

“Matt,” Dom started. “I know, I realise you’ve been through a big trauma, but, look…I…please. Move back home with me. Come back to me. I can’t _bear_ it, I can’t _bear_ being apart from you, I need you back; I need you so badly. I’ve been wanting to call you for days but I thought you would do better with some time to sort out how you feel and then Tom called me and told me you’d been hurt and were in hospital and _god_ , I thought I’d _lost_ you, I thought – and I couldn’t…” Dom’s eyes had long since filled with tears and overflowed, and he came choking to a halt at that point as the sobs finally overwhelmed him.

Matt sat in silence for a few minutes, digesting everything Dom had just gabbled out at him.

“Dom,” he began, very quietly, his voice weak but steady. “Dom, I nearly died. And…I love you. I still love you, I will always love you; I can’t not love you. And, well, I’m not dead and I just think…well, it’s given me a little perspective on the situation. We _will_ have to work to sort out what’s gone wrong in the relationship, and I won’t deny that what you did hurt, hurt _deeply_ , but really, I could have died with us at odds and you not knowing how desperately I love you and the thought of that hurts more.” He sighed. “I’m a bit muddled with the drugs, but I think what I’m trying to say, is that yes. I forgive you, because I love you, and because I’ve realised that that love is more important to me than something you did when you were screaming drunk, and because I truly believe that that the love I feel for you is enough to overcome whatever was wrong with our relationship, and god, I will never leave you again, I swear, because you’re right, it’s been all wrong, and it hurts so much, and I can’t bear it either. And I know Tom has offered to come and stay with me and look after me but really all I want is for us to go home together and stay together.”

He was breathing hard, looking a little shocked at all he’d confessed, but he realised now he’d said it that it was all true, and it was a relief to say it. A weight off his shoulders.

Then it was Dom’s turn to sit and digest what he’d just heard, his heart doing somersaults in his chest as he let it sink in that Matt still loved him, that Matt wanted him back, after all he’d done, Matt still wanted him to stay, and to never leave again.

Matt was watching him warily, anxious to hear what Dom would say in reply to that, though he’d meant what he said about forgiving Dom – the pain of what Dom had done paled in comparison to almost dying without Dom at his side. He didn’t really think Dom would turn him away, not now, after Dom had all but begged him to forgive him. But he still wanted to hear his response.

Dom looked up at him, grey eyes watery and oddly intense. “Then I will come back home and look after you and I will never leave you again,” he said quietly, his voice burning with barely contained passion. His hands were shaking around Matt’s, but he took a deep breath and stilled them as the blinding smile on Matt’s face told him all he needed to know. And gave him all the courage he needed for the next words to leave his lips.

“Matthew Bellamy,” he continued. “Matthew, I love you. More than I know how to put into words. And I don’t want to ever live without you.” He slid off his hospital chair to the floor, to one knee. “I don’t have a ring to give you right now but I will give you my heart forever, if you’ll take it. Will you marry me?”

Matt’s breaths were ragged and it was his turn to tremble but his gaze was true and voice strong and calm when he looked Dom in the eye and opened his mouth to speak. “I love you, and that’s all there is to it, so yes. Yes, I’ll marry you. I’ll marry you happily.” His face split into a beam and as Dom leaned up to hug him he reached for Dom and pressed kisses to all the skin he could reach. “Yes, yes, a thousand times, yes.”  



	17. One Year Later...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I don't understand your heart. It's easier to be apart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Author** : stormonmyskin  
>  **Pairing** : Belldom  
>  **Rating** : NC-17  
>  **Beta** : No beta, all mistakes my own.  
>  **Warnings** : Angst. Smut. Finally the smut. Fluff.  
>  **Summary** : I don't understand your heart. It's easier to be apart.  
>  **Disclaimer** : Obviously this never happened. I don't own Muse. If I did trust me I would not be sitting here writing about them...  
>  **Author's Note** : I don't quite know if this turned out how I intended it to, but it's honestly taken that long to finish that I can't remember what I intended it to be like in the first place. And yeah, we finally got to the smut. And it's fluffy af.

A year later…

Matthew sipped at his champagne and nuzzled against Dominic’s neck. They were stood on their balcony, gazing out into the night, a warm, gentle breeze lapping around them as they watched the twinkling lights of the bay and listened to the waves break softly against the soft sandy beach ahead of them.

Dominic’s arm tightened around Matthew’s shoulders possessively and he huffed out a giggle as his wedding ring glinted in the light from their hotel room. “Today couldn’t have been any more perfect.” He kept his voice low, not wanting to disturb the calm.

They’d married in a small ceremony in their hometown of Teignmouth, with just their family and friends present – everyone they loved most in the world. They’d borrowed the green they’d first met on for the event, with rows of seating arranged and streamers and ribbons dancing around them. The weather had been kind, the sun warm but not too hot, a gentle sea breeze keeping the sweat at bay. The reception had been held in a big marquee on a farm in the next village, bedecked with twinkly fairy lights, a shiny gold dancefloor, and gold sparkly disco balls.

From there they’d gone off in a stretched limo to Exeter Airport, tin cans and a ‘Just Married’ sign painted by Chris’ kids dangling from the back, more champagne flowing – Matt had been decidedly tipsy by this point, and a little envious of the way Dom could keep knocking it back with seemingly no impact – and piano music playing softly. A plane, a short taxi ride and then a quick boat trip had brought them to an idyllic Greek island, and a villa on the beach.

Matt thought back to how Dom had been waiting for him in front of everyone. He hadn’t walked down the aisle, exactly, hadn’t wanted to – he’d come in from the side, but the effect had been the same. Dom had been stood there, watching him, looking like he might split in two from happiness.

His golden hair was ruffling in the breeze and his grey suit picked out the grey of his eyes and to Matt he had never looked more lovely. He wondered – aloud, but quietly – how on Earth he’d been so lucky to end up with Dom.

Dom had disagreed with him, later, in the limo. Matt had been wearing a close fitting black suit and waistcoat with red silk lapels and detail and had glowed as he gazed adoringly at Dom. The way the trousers had hugged his slim form, accentuating the gorgeous curve of his arse, had seemed positively sinful to Dom and he had barely been able to take his eyes off his husband all day.

A thrill ran through him as he thought the word, and he leaned in close to Matt’s ear, nibbling softly on the lobe. “I love you,” he murmured, his voice pitched low and sultry. “Husband.” He dropped it even further on the last word, his voice almost a growl.

Holding Matt as closely as he was, he felt the shiver shake Matt’s body. He turned his head up to press a hungry kiss to Dom’s lips, and Dom could taste the champagne in his mouth as he swept Matt around and against his chest with a hand in the small of his back.

Things cooled as quickly as they had heated up, though; Matt melted against Dom’s chest and broke away to pant hotly into the night. He had changed out of his suit for the flight, into a more comfortable pair of burgundy trousers and a fitted white t-shirt. Despite the lateness of the hour, though, the temperature was still warm, and he wasn’t cold. He sipped again at his champagne and turned back to the scene in front of him, leaning forward to settle his elbows on the balcony railing, humming contentedly as he felt Dom lean in to the right of him, an arm coming to rest on his back.

“I can’t believe today actually happened,” Matthew murmured. “We’re actually married. You’re actually my husband.” He turned his head a touch, to quirk a smile in Dom’s direction. “I get to keep you forever.”

“And ever, and ever, my love,” Dom replied softly, arm curling round Matthew’s shoulders once more and tugging him close, tilting his head to rest it against Matthew’s. “Yours as long as you’ll have me.” He lifted a hand to trail his fingers idly down the small scar on Matthew’s right forearm, left from the accident last year, when Matt had been hit by a car and Dom had nearly lost him forever. He shuddered at the thought.

Matt looked up at him, and read his thoughts on his face. “Hey,” he murmured, leaning into kiss him softly. “It’s okay. I’m here. We’re alright, Dom.” He tilted Dom’s chin up to get better access to his lips. “It’s alright. It’s more than alright. It’s perfect, now.” He kissed him again, languidly, sweetly, sucking on his top lip for a moment before delving in. Resting his glass on the flat edge of the balcony rail, he turned to face Dom again, and brought his arms up to wrap around his neck.

He’d endured a thousand apologies from Dom over the last year for all that had happened. He didn’t think he’d ever stop trying to make up for hurting Matt as he had done. And even now, as Dom kissed Matt tenderly, Matt could feel the tension in him. Dom dragged his head back, eyes studying Matt’s mouth, before jumping up to meet Matt’s gaze. “God, I love you so much,” he whispered forcefully, pressing his forehead to Matt’s. “I’ll never stop being sorry that I hurt you. How could I have ever hurt you? I don’t think I could live without you.”

Matt pushed him back, two hands pressing against his chest. Dom went as soon as he felt the pressure, and Matt groaned frustratedly. Dom had been so careful with him, the past year. So gentle, as if Matt was made of glass and might break at a wrong move.

“And I love you,” he said now. “And I’ve told you; enough apologising. We’re here now, aren’t we? I love you. Let’s put it behind us now, and start anew. I love you and I want you and I don’t want you to hold back anymore. You married me,” he reminded him softly. “And I know it might not count for much in today’s society, but it counts with us. You’re mine and I’m yours and I want to show you how much I want you. If you’ll let me?”

As he spoke the last, he guided one of Dom’s hands down to the front of his trousers. “That’s what you do to me, Dominic,” he whispered in Dom’s ear. “I want you. Let me have you.”

Dominic’s eyes were nearly completely black with lust, the irises almost invisible. Matt took Dom’s hand and led him back off the balcony to the bed, pausing to drop sweet kisses on his lips as he went.

On reaching the bed, he stopped, and wrapped himself round Dom like a cat, kissing hungrily. Dom, spurred on by Matt’s little speech, held him right back, and, feeling bold, slid his hands under Matt’s t-shirt, eager for skin contact. He pushed Matt’s shirt up to his arm pits as they kissed, and eventually Matt took the hint and pulled away long enough to let Dom tug it over his head.

Dom quickly took care of his own shirt and tossed it in the same direction he’d chucked Matt’s. Matt’s hands were tugging at his belt; he batted them away and made short work of it himself.

Matt lost patience and went back for more kisses, breaking away to press little light butterfly kisses down Dom’s jaw when he needed to breathe, shifting and tilting his head to one side to nibble hungrily at his neck. Dom loved it when he did this, and – sure enough, as he nipped a bruise into the skin, then soothed it with his tongue, a groan rumbled from Dom’s chest.

Dom pulled Matt back so he could kiss him, then, pressing forward, gently lay him back on the bed, cradling his body in his arms until he hit the mattress, kissing still.

Matt scooted backwards up to the pillows, then lay waiting as Dom broke away to dip his hand into his bag.

Whilst nothing had really changed – they had got married, but they were still them, and they'd definitely done this before – it felt sweeter, somehow, more intense. Matt’s eyes were clear and full of love as Dom slid into him – he’d never seen anything so blue – and he just wanted to hold him, forever. He was learning, under Matt’s tuition, to forgive himself for what he’d done last year, and to understand that Matt was not a china doll. In the weeks after the accident he had felt like he daren’t touch him, for fear of hurting him again, but even as the injuries healed and Matt regained his strength and completed his physio, he still found himself anxious not to cause any damage. A year on now, however, he couldn’t deny there was really no need for him to worry anymore. They had just declared their love for each other in front of everyone they knew. There were no secrets anymore, nothing they didn’t tell each other.

And now, watching his husband lose himself to pleasure in his arms, his body trembling, lips slightly parted, his skin coated in a fine sheen of sweat, uttering soft groans as Dom nudged his prostate with each thrust, Dom didn’t think he’d ever felt happier, or more complete.

Matt shuddered to completion beneath Dom, the convulsions and moans dragging Dom over the edge with him. As Dom’s hips stuttered and his arms shook, Matt smiled wickedly up at him, and leaned his head up to kiss him. “I love you, husband,” he murmured against his lips.

The next day dawned warm and sweet. Matt woke slowly in Dom’s arms, his head cushioned on his chest. The covers were only pulled up to his waist, but the sun was warming the bare skin of his back and arms. Dom was still fast off, and Matt was too comfortable to move.  
Dom’s left hand was resting on his stomach, just in front of Matt’s face, and he smiled at the wedding ring reflecting the soft golden early morning light.

The white meshy curtains closed over their balcony fluttered in the gentle breeze whispering in through the open shutter doors, and Matt could hear the quiet lapping of small waves on the beach beyond. There was a soft scent of bougainvillea in the air, and he could feel Dom’s heart beating beneath his ear. He sighed happily, and let his eyes drift close, the thump-thump of pulse lulling him back to sleep...


End file.
